The Significance of the Dover Decision

Trixie has already provided the authoritative response to your post, so I'll just reply to this: The decision wasn't about whether evolution or ID is right or wrong, but about whether evolution or ID is science. In the eyes of the judge, evolution is science and ID is not.This makes perfect sense, of course, since someone reading a traditional biology book could ask, "Where is the supporting technical literature for the views presented in this book?" and there would be no problem pointing them to that literature.Someone reading Of Pandas and People who asked the same question could not be pointed to any supporting technical literature. That's because IDists don't do science, they do political lobbying directed at the lay public, school boards, text book publishers and legislatures.--Percy

Well, yes I see a contradiction here, a contradiction of any assumption that you might be attempting to follow the Forum Guidelines. Is this really the most appropriate topic you could find to make these points? I'm going to follow my own advice and not reply to any of your points, but will merely note that they're off-topic.Almost all posts include both on and off topic content. It is only posts that contain no on-topic content, or predominantly off-topic content with only a nod to the topic, that are a problem.--Percy

Oh, okay. If I get a chance later tonight I'll attempt a response.--Percy

I see PaulK beat me to the punch, but I'll give my slant on your take on the significance of the Dover decision.It was that nothing you said seemed supported by anything that happened at Dover that originally led me to conclude you were off-topic, but let's take a look. If by articles you mean technical articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals, then this is an unusual conclusion to draw from the Dover decision. Lack of such activity was one reason why it was so easy for the judge to conclude that ID wasn't science. If by "silence" you mean trying to prevent religious views from being taught in science classrooms, then you're correct. But if by "silence" you mean preventing IDists from performing research, or from publishing papers about their research, or from discussing ID, then you're mistaken. Nothing resembling actual scientific research has ever been produced by IDists, which explains the lack of technical papers. That IDists don't do scientific research was one of the facts the Dover trial was able to establish. The plaintiffs were just parents with children in the Dover school system who didn't want religion taught as science. The objections came from grassroots common folk and not from scientists. So when you go on to say: That is just an opinion that draws no support from anything that took place at the Dover trial. Once again, the Dover plaintiffs were common folk, not scientists. This is again just an opinion not supported by anything that happened at Dover.--Percy

Except that it's not a fact. IDists don't do research, and you can't write technical papers about research not performed. They write books like Behe's Darwin's Black Box and Dembski's Mere Creation, but they don't do research or write technical papers that any legitimate journal would recognize as science. Dover established the opposite of what you're claiming. Discovery Insitute dropped out on the eve of the trial saying the ID isn't ready to establish its bona fides in court.The scientific objection to ID is that ID is not science, and this is what Dover clearly established.For IDists, the true significance of the Dover decision is that if ID wants to be accepted as science then they have to start doing science. A few months after Dover, the Discovery Institute quietly started up a research group in downtown Seattle apart from their main offices whose goal was to begin producing the research results that ID has so far lacked. Reporters seeking stories at that time were told the group wasn't ready to make any public statements, and I haven't heard anything since, but at least DI apparently got the message.--Percy

So you claim. So this would make the significance of Dover, what? That IDists weren't doing research before Dover, despite what they were telling school boards, but now they are, and so Dover was an impetus to IDists to actually do scientific research?The significance of Dover is the clarity with which it was revealed that ID is not science, and that some ID advocates are willing to perjure themselves on the stand. Its grassroots advocates do not understand ID beyond that it opposes evolution, and they primarily think of it not as science that they understand, but as a strategy for getting religion into the classroom with a better chance of success than creationism.The significance for IDists is that if you want to be considered science you have to do science. Publishing your own journals and holding your own conferences, or even worse, shenanigans like what happened with the BSOW, are not going to help ID become accepted as science.--Percy

Articles in a book called Darwinism, Design and Public Education are not peer-reviewed technical papers in scientific journals, nor do they appear to reflect any actual research.The appearance of the Meyer paper in the BSOW journal was due to the shenanigans of then-editor Richard Sternberg and was disavowed in short order by journal's editorial board.Dynamical Genetics is a book, not a technical journal. If you look at the article (Dynamic genomes, morphological stasis, and the origin of irreducible complexity), it indicates that the book containing it was published by Research Signpost in India in 2004, and they no longer list the book at their website. A search returns the message "No Books found". Not a good way for ID to communicate its scientific "research" results.The Rivista di Biologia is a journal of pseudoscience, and the Jonathan Wells citation is for when he spoke at their forum and is not for a research paper.The Design and Nature II conference sponsored by the Wessex Institute of Technology was peer-edited, not peer-reviewed.To summarize, the so called list of research papers at the Discovery Institute site, the link being more than sufficient, by the way, no need for the lengthy cut-n-paste, is for the most part not about any actual research, and the articles do not appear in any scientifically relevant peer-reviewed technical journals.If ID wants to be science then they have to do science and present it in places where the relevant scientists will see it, which means peer-reviewed technical journals.About the rest of your list, Chaos, Solitons and Fractals isn't a biology journal, and the paper itself doesn't address ID.That cut-n-paste of peer-reviewed ID papers is posted all over the web at ID websites (Google found it on 188 different webpages). It's so common that TalkOrigins has a response at Claim CI001.4.I'll just quote the first part of the response: The rest is worth a read, too.--Percy

And from the Department of Redundancy Department we have: A list that you claim wasn't exhaustive, yet when you added one more we discover it was already on your list.By the way, here's a hint: a cut-n-paste of a link is not itself a link, so no one can follow your "link" where it says "See Scientist Says His Peer-Reviewed Research in the Journal of Molecular Biology 'Adds to the Case for Intelligent Design'". You need to either link to the original webpage (which was apparently at the Discovery Institute), or go to the trouble of recreating the links after the cut-n-paste, or cut-n-paste from the original HTML source if it doesn't rely in some essential way upon css classes.The significance of the Dover decision is the exact opposite of what you're arguing. The decision ruled that ID is not science, because for the most part IDists don't do science, they do political lobbying. I guess you're presenting references to ID papers to show that the judge's decision was wrong, but using the paper you just referenced, the description of Axe's paper that you include isn't from the abstract. His paper doesn't mention intelligent design or specified complexity. You can find the original abstract, along with the proper representation of exponents (e.g., 1077 should have been 10⁷⁷) at Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds. It may be the author's opinion that his research supports ID, but how are scientists going to know this if he only points it out at ID websites instead of in the paper itself?That being said, D. D. Axe (not D. A. Axe is in your cut-n-paste) is taking the precisely correct approach, doing research and presenting it in peer-reviewed technical journals. If he and other ID researchers succeed in forming a consensus around ID within scientific circles, then ID will start appearing in textbooks and classrooms shortly after. Presenting persuasive research results is how all other science became accepted. It's the only avenue open to any new science.Taking a scientific case to school boards instead of journals is a giant red flag that shouts, "We couldn't convince scientists, but we can sure convince hicks like you." Members of school boards should run from IDists the same way they would from someone on the street who says, "Psst, hey buddy, want to buy a genuine Rolex for just $10?"The Journal of Molecular Biology charges $30 for access to articles, including the references, so I can't do a search to see which papers referenced the 2004 Axe paper, but there's an article over at Panda's Thumb (Axe (2004) and the evolution of enzyme function) that gives a rough sense of the kind of scientific dialogue that should be taking place between Axe and his scientific peers. If Axe convinces his peers then celebrate, because it means ID wins. But right now ID remains an extremely minority view within science, one which is barely studied in any scientific manner.Even within fundamentalist Christian circles ID is a minority view, since most are YEC creationists who reject not just evolution but much of science. Probably the true danger to ID comes not from scientists but from their fellow conservative Christians, who once they discover ID contradicts a literal interpretation of Genesis will throw it out of the classroom faster than you can say "Adam and Eve." These are some of the actual significant aspects of the Dover decision.--Percy

Hi Randman,You don't really seem too interested in discussing the significance of the Dover decision, but if I could slip into admin mode for just a bit to comment on one thing: I wouldn't recommend making these kinds of characterizations. Nor accusations of witchhunts and persecution. These kinds of behaviors represent your modus operandi, it's how you draw threads into fractious discord, and they won't be permitted anymore.I said a number of things specific to Dover, and if you'd care to comment on any of them I'd be happy to respond.--Percy

Aside from the question of whether you're on-topic, can't this reply be summarized as, "Am not, you are!"?Will you be addressing the topic anytime soon?--Percy